Columnist Dean Juipe: Coach quits yet others share blame

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 1998 | 6:21 a.m.

THERE WASN'T a person in the room who didn't feel sorry for LaDonna McClain.

It showed, too, in part by the way the dozen or so witnesses to her resignation speech were conscious of giving the outgoing UNLV Lady Rebels basketball coach sufficient personal space. As they hovered near the back, she shared a front-and-center table with A.D. Charlie Cavagnaro.

And there she sat with a brokenhearted expression.

Questions were few and civil, yet they were drawing a reaction. McClain, fresh off a good pre-press conference cry, was funeral-parlor dour and her voice all but quivered as she outlined the disappointments and failures of her two years at UNLV.

Given the chance to rip the university, she thought about it but hesitated.

She opted for a safe and harmless response, blaming herself for the 7-40 record she leaves behind. Moments later the moderator intervened and McClain was pardoned from this potentially touchy Q&A. She rose and quickly departed, grimly overwhelmed by the desire to flee.

Unlike many a similar press conference, no one sprinted after her. The hardhearted media had been tamed, no one feeling the need to further intrude on this pleasant woman's nightmare.

It was that somber Monday as McClain quit before she could be fired, accepting a $65,000 buyout from the university to leave quietly for wherever.

As she disappeared, stragglers surmised the obvious: Jim Bolla, McClain's predecessor, was there and, by his very presence, letting it be known he's at least interested in also being her successor; and Cavagnaro and the school's so-called Blue Ribbon Committee that selected McClain as the Lady Rebels' head coach in the spring of 1996 made a mistake so obvious it was pointed out at the time.

Now that she has taken the fall, it's worth pointing out again.

It isn't so much that McClain failed, it was the people who recommended her and brought her to Las Vegas who failed. Given her coaching background of only two winning seasons in six years at lightweight Austin Peay, she simply did not have the experience or the resume to succeed at UNLV.

She did the best she could, while the supposed Blue Ribbon Committee did not. It had other options, far better options, yet it settled on a young lady with only a few check marks in the plus column.

Some felt she was hired simply because it was anticipated she would be subservient and easily manipulated. Whether she was or wasn't was overshadowed by her team's endlessly losing ways.

A good case can be made for believing that those who did the hiring should have been there en masse to see the firing. They would have felt some guilt for letting down the university, as well as for misleading McClain.

Sure, she took the chance but they were the ones who put her in a role that wasn't a perfect match. As such, they deserved to see her on display, distraught yet gamely trying to keep from a public unraveling on what was undoubtedly the worst afternoon of her professional life.